


A Quiet Regret

by waywardmuse



Category: Elementary (TV), Kill Bill (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2251791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardmuse/pseuds/waywardmuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan keeps one secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Quiet Regret

**Author's Note:**

> See bottom note for potential triggers.

Joan doesn’t have many secrets.

She has hopes and dreams and fears and regrets which she wears  openly. Quietly, but openly.

She does, however, have one big secret.

* * *

Michiko Ishii’s birth is a quiet event—no announcements or baby showers. Her birth parents are scared. Michiko is a sickly baby and spends her first four months in the hospital. Her parents make no fuss about the long hospital stay.

The lack of attention brought to her existence probably saves Michiko life; it may even be what they were hoping for.

A few weeks pass without the parents’ presence. Michiko has a clean bill of health when the hospital finally receives their death reports.

_(Her sister’s portion of the case file says ‘missing and presumed dead’. No one looks for Ren and the nurses forget that they have seen the child alone coming to see the baby just last week.)_

Michiko ends up being adopted by distant American relatives of her mother and is given the name _Joan Watson_.

* * *

Oren Ishii comes to find her one cool day in October. Or perhaps Oren is in New York incidentally. Oren’s…job, as Joan later learns, involves a lot of travel.  

When Oren introduces herself as her sister, Oren is eighteen and Joan is nine.  

“Why now?” Joan demands. She believes Oren within minutes. Joan knows she’s adopted and Oren looks so much like her, even if Oren is a bit strange. Oren’s wearing all black—even black lipstick—and carrying a parasol.

“I did something important and had to make money.” Oren ruffles Joan’s hair, messing it in a way her mother will sigh at and her dad will laugh at…if her dad comes home tonight. “It costs money to get to the US, you know.”

They talk a lot about Joan’s school and friends. Oren asks more questions than actually saying anything but Joan is happy to talk to someone—an adult—who doesn’t claim a headache or tiredness or _please, Joanie, I’ve had enough with your father_.

“If you’re my sister, why don’t you come to stay with mom and me?” Her dad isn’t home today and hasn’t been home for a while.  On one of his long business trips, mom had told her. Her mom lies but she’ll probably be correct that her dad wouldn’t be back for a while. Again.

“I’m a little old for parents.”

“Why come if you are only going to leave?” Joan knows she’s whining and hates how she babyish she sounds.

“I had to see you. You’re my little sister.” Oren hugs her close. “But remember, you must not tell anyone about me. Not even your parents.”

Joan agrees and holds on tight.

_(Later, when Joan learns her adoption records are sealed, she will wonder how Oren had found her. The thought won’t bother her for a long time but will be another accusatory piece in the puzzle screaming something is off about her sister.)_

* * *

A month after her sister’s visit, her mom tells her she will have a little brother in a couple months. Joan calls him Oren long before he is born.

Sister Oren isn’t impressed when she shows up three years later.

“Why not? If you weren’t going to stay, why can’t I have an Oren?” Joan picks up her little brother to prevent him from hugging his namesake’s leg.

“You don’t need another Oren.” Her sister says. She’s not as tall as she used to seem to Joan at their first meeting and should seem less intimidating but there’s something about her that makes her want to hold little Oren away from her reach. “You could come with me…not now. But someday.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Just not now.”

“Why not?” Joan isn’t sure she wants to stay here with her mom and little Oren. Her dad is home this week but Joan doesn’t think he’s going to stay. Her mom certainly doesn’t think so, not with the way she keeps having dinner with one of her coworkers.

She wants to get to know her sister. She tells little Oren about her—he can’t tell Oren that Joan is breaking her rules—and hates how she only knows what her sister looks like and that she travels a lot from all the postcards she sends Joan. Her parents never seem to notice that her “Japanese penpal” sends her cards from everywhere.

* * *

In her first semester of college, Joan has a stalker. Ryan seems friendly at first but keeps showing up _everywhere_. They have many of the same classes and Joan can almost brush it off as a coincidence but the guy doesn’t really look at other people when they are in a group and always tries to put his arm around her. It gives her the creeps and she tells her sister so in an email.

Two weeks later, her sister is in town and invites her to have lunch at this swanky hotel. The waiter serves her wine without asking for her license and Joan can’t imagine how much the stuff costs, let alone the food.

Her sister laughs her concerns off. “I have many missed meals to make up for.”

“I really do appreciate the break from campus and…that guy, but are you sure? Maybe I could pay for the food.”

“No, you couldn’t. And I wouldn’t worry about such annoyances. I am sure such things will work themselves out.” Oren smiles, all serene and perfect looking.

Joan sometimes wonders how Oren can get her hair into such a neat bun when Joan can only manage messy ponytails.

“Speaking of things working out, I was wondering if you would be interested in returning to Japan with me.”

“What?”

“We always talked about it.”

“I know but…I’ve been making plans and planning out my history degree and everything.” Joan doesn’t want to say no. She has dreamed of living with her sister for a long time, imagining it as endless sleepovers. She doesn’t imagine it so childishly now but the desire to go with her sister aches deeper each time Oren sent her a card or visited.

“Japan has plenty of history.” Oren says. “What area are you thinking of studying?”

“Currently, I’m looking into mafia history.” Joan says quickly. Most people think she’s weird to be so interested. Except Ryan, but Ryan was weird and she honestly didn’t want to talk to him about anything. “Not that I can do much with it now as a freshman but I’m gearing towards U.S history right now.”

Oren has a strange look on her face before she breaks into a smirk of a smile. “Japan has its yakuza. I’m sure you will…find them interesting.”

“Maybe.” Joan says and is happy as the waiter approaches with their food.

* * *

Oren says she has business to do later in the evening and that Joan is free to join her tomorrow. Joan heads back to her dorms, stuffed and ready to sleep.

The next morning, the campus is abuzz with the murder of an up and coming congressman.

And it isn’t just a murder, _the man’s head has been cut off_. It’s something that has been happening to politicians elsewhere but not here in America.

Joan shivers at the thought but really does need to go see her sister.

The address Oren sends her leads to a parking garage and Joan feels nervous until she sees her sister by the stairwell.

“Joan!” Oren smiles and ushers her to the door. “I have a surprise for you!”

“Please tell me you didn’t get me a car.” Joan knows Oren has money and lots of it but Joan doesn’t know what she would tell her mom if she got a car.

“No, no. Not something so flashy.” Oren says, sounding smug as she leads Joan up the stairs.

They walk up to the top floor and Joan doesn’t see any cars.

When they turn the corner, Joan sees Ryan. He is gagged and tied to a chair between two men in ill-fitting suits and dark sunglasses.

She steps back but Oren steadies her in place with a hand on her back.

“This is my present for you.” Oren pushes Joan forward into the room and closes the door behind her. “I could not let this wretch harm my sister. He has pictures of you in his room, you know.”

Oren lets her go and walks past her. One of the men hands Oren a sword.

Joan feels stuck. This couldn’t be real.

“I’m not willing to take the chance he could harm you.” Oren draws the sword from the sheath.

Joan’s mind flashes to the news this morning, of that dead politician.

“He thought I was you when I approached him.” Oren walks close to Ryan, who struggles in the chair. “Had a little bottle of rohypnol on him.“

Joan flinches, wishing she had reported him to the campus police or something; _anything_ to be away from him and this nightmare. “Oren, what are you doing?”

Joan knows but doesn’t want to think of it. “Oren—“

In a rapid motion, before Joan can even think of the word stop, Oren lifts the sword and drives it through Ryan’s neck.

His head rolls to her and Joan backs up.

Oren sheaths the sword and walks over to her. “See Joan, everything is better.”

Joan doesn’t want to look at her but the only other people are the two men—who stand there, unaffected like there isn't a dead body between them and blood splatter on their suits—and the corpse.

“You kill people.” There’s a rage in Joan, mixing with terror. She knew their parents’ case reports. How could Oren dare become like their parents’ murderers.

“Yes. Usually bad people, like him.” Oren reaches for Joan and tucks a loose strand of hair behind Joan’s ear. “I’m yakuza. I have jobs to do but this was for you, Joan.”

Joan feels sick. “I need to go home.”

“Joan…”

Joan walks away, her heart pounding. She wonders if her sister will turn that blade on her.  

One of the men—yakuza—says something in Japanese and Oren responds sharply, but their voices quiet as she walks away and Joan can’t hear them as she descends the stairs.

Oren doesn’t follow her and Joan pukes in a garbage at the bottom of the stairwell. Her heart beats frantically until she is picked up by a bus. She feels numb as she rides the bus to her dorm.

Her mind replays Ryan’s death but she’s losing focus. She imagines how the congressman dies, imagines all those foreign news pieces of beheadings of politicians, and her sister’s smirk.

* * *

The next day, Joan shows up her to her academic advisor and tells him she wants to go to med school.

She loves history, she really does.

Her heart just can’t pursue it with joy, knowing her sister’s likely place in making it.

If her sister is killing people, maybe Joan can save people.

* * *

Her sister continues to send her postcards and emails. Joan ignores them and chooses a new main email address. She needs something more professional anyways.

The last she sees of her sister Oren is at her doctorate ceremony. Oren doesn’t talk to her, doesn’t come up to her. She just sits there in the audience, applauding respectfully as if she was any other family member in the crowd.

Joan doesn’t want to see her ever again.

* * *

She isn’t lying by omission by not mentioning her sister Oren to Sherlock. At least, not in a way that makes her feel any guilt.  Little Oren is truly her brother; they bond with each other antagonistically and affectionately, as siblings do. Joan knows her brother and knows him to be a good person.

Not a killer like her sister.

Joan loses her private war against the lives her sister when she kills a man herself. When Joan meets Sherlock, what remains of her connection to her sister is distant and far from her mind, as she has been focusing on what she had seen in Liam and her father to help people.

Her sister is a footnote in her history and Joan would prefer her forgotten.

* * *

Moriarty escapes custody. Sherlock isn’t surprised but is very quiet about it. Joan imagines for a moment what it would be like for her in a similar situation— _with Oren_ she thinks for a moment but Moriarty fills the space easily enough on her own—and is surprised Sherlock hasn’t been going around breaking plates.  

Joan really wants to break plates and tea mugs when Moriarty sits down next to her in her favorite café.

“I’ve been given a talking to.” Moriarty says. “I wasn’t aware you had connections to yakuza assassins.”

Joan sets down her tea, glad she has yet to take a sip to choke on.

“She didn’t have to say why you are important to her. It shows quite easily in her face.” Moriarty smiles, all cat-like and worlds apart from the innocent, broken Irene she once portrayed herself as. “I had thought your brother’s name was a coincidence but now I find it amusing.

A dam breaks in Joan. Oren Ishii has been a non-topic in her life since Oren had met little Oren.

“I suggested the name.” Joan admits, the words flowing freely. Who else could she tell? Not her mom, not her brother, and she dreads the idea of Sherlock even getting a hint of her sister. “Oren didn’t forgive me for that.”

Her brother does, laughing off the random name without understanding why Joan feels so guilty about giving it to him.

Moriarty stays just long enough for Joan to talk of her happier memories of Oren. She doesn’t talk about college. She doesn’t want to know what Moriarty would say. Even playing Joan’s confessor, Moriarty is a killer like Oren and Joan does not want to hear her opinion of Oren’s ‘gift’ to her.

Moriarty’s possible agreement would not sway her but Joan would rather talk about the good memories of her sister, if she is to talk of Oren at all.

* * *

The news ticker is short and vague, dismissing it as unimportant for American news but Joan knows what a yakuza coup means.

Oren Ishii is dead.

“Sherlock, I’m going out.” She yells, already grabbing her boots. It’s a cold day but Joan cannot be here if the news breaks into details of her sister’s death.

Sherlock sticks his head out of the kitchen. “When will you be back? I’m making dinner!”

Joan doesn’t know, she just needs air. “A few hours, maybe.”

Her shoes are on and she grabs her coat as she walks out the door.

The street is dark and empty. Trudging through the snow, Joan can barely see. There are tears in her eyes.

She hates her sister for everything she has done but right now she hates Oren Ishii even more for dying

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Potential Triggers: Stalking, mention of (but not use) of a date rape drug
> 
> Sometimes an idea sticks in your head and you just have to write it.  
> And thank goodness I have good friends to edit for me because my verb tenses were all over the place in the rough draft.


End file.
